Floella Benjamin Says Get TVs And PCs Out Of Kids' Bedrooms

Floella Benjamin - former presenter of childrens' iconic 1970s TV show Play School - has said that TVs and PCs in bedrooms can cause kids personal problems later in life.

Speaking at an event hosted by campaign group Voice of the Listener and Viewer, Floella, 62, said: 'Children must not watch television or access the internet in their bedrooms. I was at a school today and I asked the children if they had televisions in their room, and almost half of the children put their hands up and said they had.

'They must switch them off. We must teach children how to resist and how to say no.

What I tell children is that they have choices – they can control their minds.'

Mum-of-two Floella - now Baroness Benjamin after being made a Liberal Democrat peer last year - said she thought children should be taught how to restrict the amount of modern technology they expose themselves to - claiming the restraint would put them in good stead for resisting other temptations in adulthood.

'It teaches them how to take on things in their wider life, whether it's drugs or bullying or having affairs. It takes strong minds,' she said.

Previously in a Lords debate, Baroness Benjamin said that televisions and computers should be banned from children's bedrooms as they are being used as 'surrogate parents or baby-sitters'. She has also called for an improvement in modern children's TV programmes.

Do you agree with what Baroness Benjamin says? Or are you quite happy for your children to have TVs and computers in their rooms?